A TEESSIDE college boss has cautiously welcomed a new £180m Government bursary scheme which will replace grants for the poorest students.

The announcement comes just months before teenagers were to lose-out on the £30-a-week Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), designed to help them stay in college.

Despite the Government U-turn, the new scheme represents less than one third of the £560m originally spent on EMA.

Payments between £10 and £30 were made to 16 to 19-year-olds living in households earning less than £30,800 a year. The EMA will now be replaced with a payment of £1,200 per year for a small group of the “most vulnerable” teenagers.

But most who began courses in 2009-10, and claim EMA, will continue to receive it until the end of the next academic year.

Those who started courses last September - and receive £30 a week - will continue to get at least £20 a week until the end of the 2011-2012 academic year.

We previously reported that 67% of students at Middlesbrough College received the allowance.

Principal Mike Hopkins said: “The college and its students have lobbied hard to persuade the Government that it needed to increase the amount of money available to students from less well off backgrounds.

“The Government has, to an extent listened.

“The students have argued an articulate, evidence based and coherent case and has been heard.

“The college has also made it clear that it will do everything in its power to ensure that not one student who wants to come here is prevented from doing so because they cannot afford it. We will add to the money received from Government so that we can offer free transport, subsidised food and course material costs.

“Education is a right not a privilege, and we will do the best that we can for students, within our budget.”